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Mr. President, I would
like to respond.
KBC (jdk) 1/20/04
We
are irrigators in the Klamath Basin. Yes we
agree with your words...they bring light and hope.
But, your statement won't leave my mind; "I
believe that God has planted in every heart the desire
to live in freedom. And even when that desire is
crushed by tyranny for decades, it will rise again."
It brings my thoughts to another statement by a
neighbor in 2001 when our stored water was taken away
from farms and refuges.
Velma
Robison, a WWII homesteader's wife, stated,
"April 6, 2001 was as infamous to the people of
Tulelake as December 7, Pearl Harbor Day, was to the
citizens of the United States." I remember Aline
Terry, 80 yr old WWII homesteader's wife calling me
crying because she feared having to slaughter their
cattle herd of 50 years because the pasture and
alfalfa were dying and the cattle were starving. I
remember sitting in my car crying as over 100
unemployed farmers drove their tractors down the
streets of Klamath Falls as their crops died and
pastures withered. I remember a Hispanic man, a
Klamath Basin resident of over 20 years, crying,
wondering what he and his people would do, and where
they would go. I remember the auctions. I
remember my elderly neighbors standing at the fence by
the headgates, with armed marshals keeping them from
the wheel that they could turn to keep their fields
from dying. I remember my friend telling about her
husband's suicide, because without water on farms,
there is no life. I remember 90-year-old settler Nellie Takacs
going without well water for a few weeks because over
100 domestic wells went dry from the empty canals and
pumping our groundwater excessively. I remember the
day the National Academy of Science (NAS) interim report,
and also the final report, came out saying that the
WATER SHUTOFF WAS NOT JUSTIFIED. We rejoiced...justice
at last!
And today I see, once again, the total disbelief as
your government agencies are taking our water, pouring
our stored irrigation water into the ocean.
Disregarding the NAS 'best available science',
they are using the same false science that shut down
our farms and refuges in 2001 to demand these
higher-than-historic elevated river flows and lake
levels.
Tonight I attended a meeting in Fort Klamath. You
should have seen the fear and disbelief in the eyes of
these farmers and ranchers whose land is surrounded by
National Forest. This public forest, 690,000
acres, may be given
to the Klamath Tribes again, encouraged by your
Department of the Interior and Bureau of Indian
Affairs. The Tribes told us they want to shut
down backroads, let fires burn naturally, downsize
agriculture, and claim all of our water. Their
claim in our state adjudication process is for more
water than exists in our watershed. Tonight this same group was being
told that an organization, Klamath Basin Rangeland Trust,
is trying once again to rent water rights from
our local ranches with federal money, dewatering our fields and destroying our
cattle industry, using the same false science that,
'unjustified', shut down our community in 2001. Is
this not tyranny?
And today we are being told that, if we do not pump our
aquifer and let fields go dry in a scheme called
'Water Bank', the Klamath Project will be shut
down again to achieve artificially-elevated lake
levels for an endangered fish that your agencies
refuse to count, and that is on a fast-track to
delisting. This water-bank, 75,000 acre feet of
irrigation water, is demanded of us regardless
of water year type. Those who do
not call it 'blackmail' call it 'extortion'.
Mr. President, we still raise our flags. We still pray.
We still have hope. Actually, I think most of us
believe that if you really knew what was happening
here in the Klamath Basin, the land grabs and
agricultural downsize regarding our water, we believe
that you would not allow this to happen. We do
want to believe in you, but your agencies and
bureaucrats are making it very very difficult.
Again, like you said,
"I
believe that God has planted in every heart the desire
to live in freedom. And even when that desire is
crushed by tyranny for decades, it will rise again."
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